Retrieval, automaticity, vocabulary elaboration, orthography (RAVE-O): a comprehensive, fluency-based reading intervention program

The most important implication of the double-deficit hypothesis (Wolf & Bowers, in this issue) concerns a new emphasis on fluency and automaticity in intervention for children with developmental reading disabilities. The RAVE-O (Retrieval, Automaticity, Vocabulary Elaboration, Orthography) program is an experimental, fluency-based approach to reading intervention that is designed to accompany a phonological analysis program. In an effort to address multiple possible sources of dysfluency in readers with disabilities, the program involves comprehensive emphases both on fluency in word attack, word identification, and comprehension and on automaticity in underlying componential processes (e.g., phonological, orthographic, semantic, and lexical retrieval skills). The goals, theoretical principles, and applied activities of the RAVE-O curriculum are described with particular stress on facilitating the development of rapid orthographic pattern recognition and on changing children's attitudes toward language.     

C2STEM: a System for Synergistic Learning of Physics and Computational Thinking

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Synergistic learning combining computational thinking (CT) and STEM has proven to be an effective method for advancing learning and understanding in a...     

Educating and Measuring Choice: A Test of the Transfer of Design Thinking in Problem Solving and Learning

Educators aim to equip students with learning strategies they can apply when approaching new problems on their own. Teaching design-thinking strategies may support this goal. A first test would show that the strategies are good for learning and that students spontaneously transfer them beyond classroom instruction. To examine this, we introduce choice-based assessments (CBAs). CBAs measure how people learn when there is minimal guidance and they must make decisions as independent learners. Here, sixth-grade students completed multiple design activities that emphasized either seeking constructive criticism or exploring a space of alternatives. Afterward, they completed the CBAs, which measured strategy transfer. Results showed that lower-achieving students benefitted most from instruction, exhibiting a relative increase in their use of design-thinking strategies. In addition, strategy choices correlated with prior achievement measures and appeared to mediate performance in and learning from the CBAs. The choices to use the two strategies themselves were not correlated, which indicates that they are not subsets of a larger construct, such as growth mindset. In sum, CBAs enabled a double demonstration: design-thinking strategies may improve learning and problem solving, and design-thinking instruction may improve the likelihood of lower-achieving students choosing to use effective strategies in novel settings that require new learning.     

高等教育体制:高等职业教育的发展如何适应知识、信息和经济增长的需求

在经济与社会方面,现代改革的关键因素是知识与全球电子信息的增长.它们对高等教育的影响是显而易见的,这将对未来高等教育体制及机构的发展提出挑战.在地区或国家高等教育体制改革中的关键就是社会与经济发展内在要求和外在要求的恰当结合.对高等职业教育体制的分析,包括对新西兰、美国的夏威夷、加州以及中国的分析,将能就目前不同教育背景下的教、学和学位结构进行评价.这种分析可以为未来高等职业教育的发展提出建议,从而使高等教育体制成为促进经济发展的一个主要因素.本文将探讨高等职业教育机构在终生学习、人力资源的不断开发、劳动力教育等方面的重要作用.     

Natural water purification and water management by artificial groundwater recharge

Worldwide, several regions suffer from water scarcity and contamination. The infiltration and subsurface storage of rain and fiver water can reduce water stress. Artificial groundwater recharge, possibly combined with bank filtration, plant puri- fication and/or the use of subsurface dams and artificial aquifers, is especially advantageous in areas where layers of gravel and sand exist below the earth's surface. Artificial infiltration of surface water into the uppermost aquifer has qualitative and quanti-tative advantages. The contamination of infiltrated fiver water will be reduced by natural attenuation. Clay minerals, iron hy-droxide and humic matter as well as microorganisms located in the subsurface have high decontamination capacities. By this, a final water treatment, if necessary, becomes much easier and cheaper. The quantitative effect concerns the seasonally changing fiver discharge that influences the possibility of water extraction for drinking water purposes. Such changes can be equalised by seasonally adapted infiltration/extraction of water in/out of the aquifer according to the fiver discharge and the water need. This method enables a continuous water supply over the whole year. Generally, artificially recharged groundwater is better protected against pollution than surface water, and the delimitation of water protection zones makes it even more save.     

Clusters of second and third grade dysfluent urban readers

This study examined the heterogeneity within a sample of 140 urban second and third graders identified as at-risk for reading failure due to inefficient word and/or nonword reading. Cluster analyses were conducted using standardized factor scores from a four-factor structural equation model characterizing reading performance in this sample. These standardized factor scores represented performance on four distinct factors: efficiency of word-level skills, text level skills, decoding, and vocabulary. Results identified four clusters of children who show distinctive patterns of performance on the four factors of reading. These understudied groups show different compositions along demographic categories and reading disability categories. Additionally, they have unique instructional needs that call for differentiated instruction in the domains of phonological decoding, fluency, text reading, and vocabulary.